Wednesday, January 22, 2014

Party of One


Last Saturday we hosted a little get-together at our place in honor of two very special guys: our baby Graham was turning the big 1 and his cousin Colt was turning 11. Needless to say, we had to commemorate these very auspicious occasions with three big number 1 balloons and personal cakes for each birthday boy. As promised, I thought I'd share some of the photos I took before the party was in full swing, i.e. before my beautiful cakes were demolished by little fingers. 


This was the garland I was most proud of. I loooved the icy blue, turquoise, and gray strung up together on baker's twine. Maybe we'll keep it up all year?


And the snowflakes! I had never made six-pointed snowflakes before, so the party was a great excuse to cut it up. I trimmed them from a bunch of coffee filters and pale blue tissue paper. The blue streamers were twisted from a simple tutorial I found here


Mini cakes! Such a cute and easy way to make a special occasion even special-er!
I followed the recipe on the back of the chocolate cake mix box and baked them in three (empty and clean) 28-oz tin cans according to the time and temperature I found here. P.S. Maybe it was our oven, but the cakes took about 10-15 minutes longer to cook than they said. Oh! And you'll need more than one can of icing to make these look nice and frosty. 


For Graham's first birthday cake, I wanted to go light on the sugar, so I followed the recipe for a homemade banana apple cake I found here. The icing was a little runny and the cake itself turned out a bit gummy, but he ate almost half of it! The chocolate chip cookies were from a recipe I found here. (Which I later discovered is the very same famous NYTimes recipe.) I've made them for a couple of parties now, and while they are a bit more labor intensive than the ol' dependable Tollhouse, everyone raves over them. 


The number 1 balloons were a big hit with the little guy. I think mostly because he can see his own reflection in them and loves to kiss himself in the mirror these days. Seriously, those two really need to get a room. 

All in all, I think the party was super fun! And even though he won't remember any of it, I think Graham did too. Happy birthday, buddy! 


- Cathleen 


2 comments:

  1. Such a great party and a nice post to commemorate the occasion!

    ReplyDelete
  2. You are a wizard! This looks amazing.

    Also, what is that little framed artwork to the right of the beaker piece (which is also awesome)? Because I love it even though I can't tell what it is.

    ReplyDelete

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